An interview with JavaOne Rock Star Martijn Verburg, by yours truly, titled “Challenging the Diabolical Developer: A Conversation with JavaOne Rock Star Martijn Verburg,” is now up on otn/java. Verburg, one of the leading movers and shakers in the Java community, is well known for his ‘diabolical developer” talks at JavaOne where he uncovers some of the worst practices that Java developers are prone to.

He mentions a few in the interview:

* “A lack of communication: Software development is far more a social activity than a technical one; most projects fail because of communication issues and social dynamics, not because of a bad technical decision. Sadly, many developers never learn this lesson.
* No source control: Some developers simply store code in local file systems and e-mail the code in order to integrate their changes; yes, this still happens.
* Design-driven design: Some developers are inclined to cram every design pattern from the Gang of Four (GoF) book into their projects. Of course, by that stage, they've actually forgotten why they're building the software in the first place.”

He points to a couple of core assumptions and confusions that lead to trouble:

“One is that developers think that the JVM is a magic box that will clean up their memory and make their code run fast, as well as make them cups of coffee. The JVM does help in a lot of cases, but bad code can and will still lead to terrible results!

The other trend is to try to force Java (the language) to do something it's not very good at, such as rapid Web development. So you get a proliferation of overly complex frameworks, libraries, and techniques trying to get around the fact that Java is a monolithic, statically typed, compiled, OO environment. It's not a Golden Hammer!”

Verburg has many insightful things to say about how to keep a Java User Group (JUG) going, about the “Adopt a JSR” program, bugathons, and much more.

Check out the article here.